


Just don't open your eyes yet

by a_la_grecque



Category: Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 06:43:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13607775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_la_grecque/pseuds/a_la_grecque
Summary: After the war, Jack receives a surprise package from Algie.





	Just don't open your eyes yet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PositivelyVexed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PositivelyVexed/gifts).



It came with a letter from Algie, after he got back from the war. He told me that he hadn't read it, not really, but he wasn't sure if he should pass it on or not until he was released. He wrote a little bit about what happened to him there, that they kept him alone in the dark. He'd never really understood the horror of Gruhuken until they slammed the door on his cell, he said. He said he was sorry. 

It was a slim blue book, identical to the one that must have burned that night, along with everything else. My skin started creeping at the thought of it, leaving me shivering in the shady coolness of my house, deceptive with all the sun shining outside. It too Isaak to break me out of it, bumping his head up under my hand and looking up at me with quizzical eyes and a series of croaky 'ror-ror-ror's. 

I opened the book, half expecting the pages to be stiff and swollen with seawater although this diary had never seen the sea. It didn't matter, it was still soaked in the essence of Gruhuken. I could almost see it lifting off the pages like breath condensing in the Arctic cold. 

It was innoccuous enough to start with, more of Gus' distinctive drawings - the tiny plants that crept up the sides of the rocks, the sun low over the sea, a still life of bones... I turned the page and sucked in a surprised breath. It was me on the page, or the person I used to be. Gus had never said anything about drawing me, or asked me to sit for him, but he'd captured that ridiculous beard I was once so proud of, and something in my eyes. I can hardly believe that it used to matter to me so much that I was different from them, and that I would never see that look in them again. I turned the page again, and found the next one was covered in Gus' clear boyish hand. 

_I can't sleep, I'm telling myself it's just my body being confused about whether it should be day or night, but it's not. I don't know how he can't have noticed, sometimes I stare so hard I think he must feel it, like I'm really touching him. Algie knows, of course, although he hasn't said anything. He's always been good at that sort of thing, ever since school, and he's always had my back, in his own way. Jack doesn't understand, I'm sure of that, and I worry he's growing to hate Algie. I could see the revulsion in his face last night when Algie took his bath. I don't know if it's because it was Algie or perhaps it's just being forced to come into such close contact with other men. Jack never boarded at school, so this is all new to him, living on top of each other like we do, falling asleep to the sound of each other's snores, smelling each other's increasingly ripe gear, seeing each other sliding in and out of clothes like it's nothing._

_With Algie it is nothing, but with Jack? I'm going to have to tell Algie there'll be no more baths. If he's taking them then it puts an obligation on me and Jack to do the same, and I'm not sure I could trust myself to be around Jack taking a bath. I can barely trust myself to be around him fully clothed some days. I'm worried I'll just blurt out everything and he'll realise what a fool I am. And he won't care... he's always so preoccupied these days with the generators and the damned Stevenson screen. He never seems to relax, even in sleep. I can seem him now, lying across from me, the planes of his face picked out by the light we can't block from spilling arond the sides of the curtains. His back's turned towards us, ramrod straight, his eyebrows pulled into a dark furrow, looking like he's detemined to force himself into unconsciousness and hold himself there, constant daylight be damned. I have this absurd urge to climb out of my bed and into his, curve myself around him until his body relaxes into mine, kiss that furrow between his brows into submission, kiss his lips until he opens to me... God I don't think I can stand it, not for all these months. It's like he's haunting me. At least school taught me how to be quiet and discreet about the act of self-relief._

I couldn't read anymore. I pushed the diary away and dragged Isaak out of the house with me, into the sun and off for a long walk, far away from the sea. It was too cruel, to know that if one of us had just said something, everything could have been different. 

It was almost full dark before we got home, stars lighting up the velvet sky. I couldn't face food or anything else, so I took myself to bed and turned my back on the darkness. I dreamed, of course I did, I'm there every night. I don't think I ever left Gruhuken, it's waiting for me every time I close my eyes. This time there's light, light and all the tremulous hopes from those first few weeks, that we would make a success of it after all. Gus is walking ahead of me across the rocks, the sunlight catching the drops of water in his hair and turning them into diamonds. He turns around to me with his Boy's Own hero smile. I step forward, smiling back at him, and take his hand. It's cold, cold and damp and yielding sickeningly under the pressure of my fingers, bloated like some long dead thing that's been under the sea. 

That woke me, left me sitting bolt upright in the bed, soaked with sweat and still with some cold damp thing pressing at my fingertips. Just Isaak, shoving his nose into unlikely places like always.


End file.
